I've been staring at my tie rod for 4 years now and thinking, "Why would Chrysler build a Jeep Wrangler with a hollow tube for a tie rod?" I had a 97 Grand Cherokee and the tie rod on it was much heavier. Plus the tie rod ends were much beefier on the GC as well. I did my research over the last year and found that not all is as it seems when it comes to tie rod upgrades.
For instance, one company's tie rod is plenty beefy but received bad reviews due to up and down play where the drag link attaches to the tie rod which creates a steering delay or flat spot in the steering which seemed dangerous to some of the reviewers. The other company I found has a great reputation and they charge accordingly.
Now I think a lot and my thinking is that as big as some of these companies are, they don't have the R&D budget that Chrysler has. So I found Omix-Ada's entry in the upgrade game.
There are two offerings for TJ's; the Deluxe and the Deluxe Upgrade. The upgrade includes a steering stabilizer. I found a Black Friday sale on the Deluxe Upgrade for $141.00 and pulled the trigger. Two days later it was on my doorstep....

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

Now I mentioned Chrysler's R&D budget. What I mean is they pay engineers, artists, sculptors, machinists and a whole slough of people to design and build stuff that we hope will last a lifetime. The Omix-Ada is in essence a 93-98 Grand Cherokee drag link and tie rod setup, thus the part number HDSTRGCR2. This number to me says Heavy Duty Steering Grand Cherokee R(?)2. I like this idea best because replacement parts are commercially available from any Auto Parts store. I can't imagine breaking or bending this setup, but it is comforting to know I don't have to look far for replacement parts.
I opted not to use the steering stabilizer that was included in the kit as mine seemed to be functioning just fine. A pickle fork made short work of removing the old steering setup. I installed the new linkage in short time and realized that though all the nuts included (and threaded onto various tie rod components) do not necessarily belong where they were attached. There were three cadmium plated nuts and one black nut. All were castellated. The black nut was on the passenger side of the drag link, then a cad plated nut on the pitman arm end and then two cad plated nuts were on the tie rod. Once torqued the cad plated nut on the drag link to tie rod connection would not accept a cotter pin. As there were no directions included, I swapped the black nut with a cad nut and the problem was solved. A front end alignment was needed and I will tell you that is way easier with the adjusting sleeve instead of trying to turn the whole tie rod. I am pleased with the HD Steering upgrade. Installation is a snap and what a difference in my steering!

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

Driving impression after 100 miles...
The Jeep is nimble, steers quickly and no longer wanders. Everything is nice and tight. I've also noticed that the little shimmy in the steering wheel at 45 to 50 mph is gone. I just figured its time to rebalance the tires, I was wrong. I imagine that I was just suffering from worn out steering components or getting a little flex in the tie rod. Of course the main difference between the two kits is that the new tie rod is solid metal, not a hollow tube. And the tie rod ends themselves are twice the thickness of the stock tie rods.

I give it a big thumbs up!

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

I know there are other threads in here that talk about the ZJ steering setup, and it consulted the JeepForum knowledge base extensively. Some folks have gone to an auto parts store and just bought the tie rod for a V8 Grand Cherokee and like I said, that is in essence what I got. I could've gone that route but opted for the entire kit in one shot and replace my entire steering linkage in one shot.

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

So I'm on Facebook one day and I see these lights installed in a Nemesis Industries Rocker panel and I thought they looked cool. And the. A light went on...rock lights. This is the Cyclone LED light
Tiny little lights 1/2" thick and 2" diameter.

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

So I picked up 4 Cyclone LED's from KC HiLites for $20 a piece with the intent of using them as rock lights. I also ordered some new light switches from Amazon.
I originally used a rocker switch I picked up at Radio Shack for my fog lights.
Once I bought the Rigid Industries LED's for the windshield, I wired them to the rocker switch and put a factory fog light switch in place of my turn signal switch which didn't have a fog light position. The new switches I ordered look factory and fit perfectly where the blanks were.
As for mounting the lights, I figured out the front easy enough. I utilized the front middle fender mount bolts so the light shines out and slightly downward.
They are bright!
This was taken in my garage
And then tonight
While wiring these, I put a terminal block on the inner right fender so that when I figure out where to mount the rear lights it'll be a simple job to attach the wires to the terminal block and not have to add another switch or relay. I'm using the same power source for relay control so it is a fused switch. The power for the lights is also fused through the non existent rear window defogger circuit.

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

You'll notice in this pic the big shadow in the middle front. Not quite what I was after
So I added one more light to the front. It actually is mounted to the body mount bracket on the frame. Plenty of protection around it
And the shadow is gone

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

I bought JKS disconnects back when I had a 2inch budget boost. They were the shorter ones and the maximum length for them was 9 and 3/8 inches. I had to adjust them longer when I lifted to 3.5 inches but the swaybar was only at 1.4 degrees up. (Needs to be 10 degrees +/- 5 degrees according to JKS and 10 degrees per the FSM)
enter the JKS 2001 disconnects.
they are adjustable to 11.5 inches and after installing they are adjusted to 11 and 3/8" to give me 10 degrees up on the swaybar. You can see the full 2 inch difference in the links.

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

After installing three of the four KC Hilites Cyclones, I had a friend say she had an extra Rigid Industries Flood light and the price was right. So, now I have a flood light and one cyclone to install.
In the previous post I said I am using the coil power for the relay for a non existent hard top rear windo defogger to control both my rock light relay and windshield relays. I wanted them on separate switches and figure the fuse is strong enough to control both relays. The windshield lights are controlled by the actual defogger relay and the power of course is fused. I needed a fuse on the power leg of the rock lights and installed one last night. Both lights get their power from the two studs on the power distribution center which is fed directly by the battery. So, where to install the remaining lights?
The flood light was a no brainer. Where I had installed the three cyclones up front, I still needed one in the back.
It's mounted in between the two rear drivers seat mount bolts and shines it's beam underneath the rear differential. I cleaned up all the wiring under the hood and down the frame with 1/2" convoluted tubing and the main harness convoluted tubing across the firewall.
All the rock lights are wired to a terminal board under the hood
The installation of the remaining Cyclone came to me as I was working under the hood with a drop light and flash light to see. My under hood light has been burned out for awhile. So this morning I removed the light assembly, soldered two pigtails to the contacts for the bulb and installed the light using two rubber grommets to isolate it from ground.
Drilled a small hole at the bottom of the old light assembly to feed the wiring through

And yes, the light does go out when I shut the hood

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"

Nice build! Do we get pics of the built-up XJ? It looks so clean, cleaner than ANY XJ I've ever seen (stupid road salt). Also, on the first page, what's that red car? An old Mustang?

Thanks dude! Well, in order the XJ was kind of misleading. I say we built it up but in fact what I meant is, we bought it, cleaned it up and made sure it was roadworthy. The way you see it is pretty much the way it was when we got it. Bought it off a guy up west of Atlanta who was asking 1200 bucks and it would not run. He thought it was a fuel pump, so that helped the negotiation. So we gave him 900 and I drove it home after swapping the relay in his driveway.
My daughter, who lives in North Carolina, kept the car for about a year and then gave it back to us. I towed it home and during the tow the transfer case ended up basically exploding. I sold it about three months ago to a guy who lives about 40 miles away. But made just about all my money back off of it.

The car on the first page was a 1977 Datsun 280Z. It was another "Winter Therapy" project as my wife call them. It was another CL project car. Bought in 2008 locally and sold in 2010 to a guy from Alabama. I hated to see that one go... It was a beautiful car
Yes, that's really a Fiero in the background. It was our other daughter's car.
Here's a 70 Beetle restoration I did for my Dad.
The Beetle I took from him, as it was in sad shape. He'd owned it about 15 years and had rear ended someone. The front end was pushed in about 3 inches and it was tweaked behind the front fenders. Proper application of force with a Jack in the front and a hammer behind and it pulled right out. I ripped every bit of wiring out of it and replaced it with a new harness, reupholstered the seats, new headliner, and overhauled the motor had it repainted after removing about 10 pounds of Bondo. I primed it, but the actual paint is the only thing I did not do. Whole project took about a year. He's had several strokes since that delivery and I honestly don't believe he'll ever drive it again. So it sits in his driveway.
My son's Jeep was the Green one. From this:
To this:
It has a build thread too called Labor of Love (in my signature block). That pretty much sums up my last 5 years. Looking back on it here, I was a pretty busy guy; lets not even talk about averaging 650 hours of overtime at work per year.
No, the Littlebee is my only project.... For now

Owning a jeep is like raising a rebellious teenager: the more you love it and nurture it and buy nice things for it, the more it says, "screw you! I'm doing drugs and drinking because I hate you!"